


Hour

by rudbeckia



Series: Random Worlds [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Sex Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 10:31:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11439009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudbeckia/pseuds/rudbeckia
Summary: Ben Solo is the most frivolous time trveller in the universe.





	Hour

Ben twisted like a cat to look up at the pale face of the young man he’d just fucked, now pink with ginger strands plastered onto his forehead.  
“I don’t make a habit of this, you know.”  
“Really?” the man replied with a satisfied smirk. “Could’ve fooled me. I thought you’d be awkward, that this might be your first time and I’d have to tell you what to do. Or demonstrate.”  
“Ah-haha. Well.” Ben smiled and showed a quick flash of white teeth. “I suppose it is my first time. But I just _knew_ , you know? Arm—” He caught himself before giving away his secret and wriggled his limb from underneath. “Arm hurts. Anyway, what’s your name?” Ben steeled himself although he knew the urge to laugh had faded away and now the odd name sounded right for the gaunt man with the striking hair.  
“Armitage Hux, pleased to meet you.” He stuck out a hand. Ben took it and held on.  
“Ben Solo.”

* * * * *

The first time had been terrible. Ben had escaped from the eighteenth birthday party his mother insisted on throwing, saying he needed a breath of fresh air and walked down by the canal that carried holidaymakers like themselves and, more rarely, freight from wharf to wharf in the crumbling industrial heartland of the country. He’d paused and nodded a greeting at a man with neat red hair and grey eyes in the fading twilight, cheeks given a healthy glow by the light from a tame campfire beside the towpath. The man had looked up, just a glance really, and something wild uncoiled in the depths of Ben’s gut. It reached up and squeezed the air from his lungs.

“Can I help you?” A sharp voice, a little nasal, slipped from the stranger’s lips. Ben looked away, suddenly aware that he had been staring. He walked on in embarrassed silence but the man called after him, “Got a light?”  
That made Ben laugh. He turned back to the man who had so easily stolen the breath from his body and smiled. He reached down and plucked a twig from the embers and held it up. This time the man laughed too.  
“I don’t smoke. Filthy habit. You?” He took the burning twig from Ben, tugging it from his fingers, and tossed it back into the fire.  
“No, um,” Ben thought of his last joint, the mean measure of sweet leaf carefully preserved in a roll of his spare socks for when close proximity to his parents finally drove him mad, and blushed. “Not tobacco, anyway.”  
The man perked up. “You got any?”  
“Enough for one. Not on me.” Ben pointed back the way he had come. “I could go—“  
“No! No, stay. If I let you go you might not come back. So you don’t smoke and you’re generous. Do you have any nasty little habits at all, then?”  
Ben stared at the man again, trying to read an expression obscured by cool moonlight and hot fire. Something told him he could say _anything_ and it wouldn’t matter at all.  
“I’m hiding from my eighteenth birthday party because I hate other people.”  
“Oh thank the gods of the locks.” The man raised his arms in supplication then smiled at Ben. “Me too. The hating people, not the birthday thing, obviously. Want to come aboard?”  
Ben frowned. “What?”  
“I said,” the man repeated slowly and with emphasis, “do _you_ want to _come_ with _me_ in my boat.”  
After a little mental-image processing, Ben had almost come on the towpath. “Yes!” he enthused. “Yes I do.”  
He grasped the offered hand and stepped onto the plain narrowboat, hit his head on the low doorway and swore as his new friend laughed. “Is this your first time?”  
“Ugh yes, please don’t make a thing about it. I’m eighteen and never got lucky.”  
“Oh!” A pale face steeped in concern. “I meant on a narrowboat.”

It had been, from Ben’s perspective, terrible. His comprehensive but entirely theoretical knowledge of sexual acts derived from furtive forays into the internet had not prepared him for the reality of a hot cock in his mouth. It tasted _weird,_ not bad exactly but he wasn’t convinced he liked it. He’d pushed the man off, pushed him down and attempted to finish the job by hand until he felt a stinging blow to the side of his head. He sat back, and the stranger with the boat and the softening cock sat up.  
“It’s my cock, not a lump of dough.”  
“Uh. Sorry.”

Ben had grabbed his discarded clothing and run, determined never to look at hot strangers ever again. On his way back to the party, calmer after a two minute wank in the shower and a five minute internal argument over how desperately he wanted his last joint, Ben wished with his heart and soul that he could wind back time and encounter the willing redhead again. He closed his eyes against the sudden queasiness that shifted his stomach and opened the door into the party.

He frowned. The cake was intact. The two-tier confection he remembered cutting into slabs had not been portioned and the flat, steel knife glinted without a smear on a stack of clean plates. Ben edged into the room, looking around for any sign that his unexplained absence might have caused trouble.

“Ben! Ben, come and cut your cake, birthday-boy!” It was his mother, smiling and relaxed, perhaps a little buzzed from champagne. Han, he wouldn’t call him _Dad,_ stood behind and smiled a smile that screamed _get me out of here!_ Ben wished Uncle Chewie could have been here too. He would have cuffed Han, hugged Leia and said rude words loudly in a language few understood. Ben stepped forward.  
“What time is it?Am I late?”  
“No, honey. You’re a little early. It’s only just gone nine but we may as well get this done then you can run and hide in your room for a while if you want. Here.” Leia steered her son to the table and handed him the knife with a wink. “Stick that where it counts.”  
For a fleeting instant, Ben remembered that he loved his mother.

He cut the cake, smiled for photographs and excused himself again. Ben slipped up to his room, retrieved his joint and tiptoed down the stairs and out the side door. A quiet smoke down by the calm of the canal seemed like a fantastic idea. It was light, too light, and Ben checked his phone. Had he dreamed the encounter? Had he fallen asleep before even going out, and woken a mere minute later with an hour worth of dream in his head? No matter. He had all he needed right now.

 

The second time had been better. Ben, strolling along the towpath with his head occupied by thoughts of possible futures, saw the little campfire next to the plain, red-painted boat with black trim. He paused to look along the canal, back and forward, but all was as it should be. The sky glowed orange fire as if reflecting and magnifying the scene below and Ben smiled. Might as well go along with his dream, déja-vu or hallucination, or whatever this was. He walked slowly past the redheaded man and paused, half turned.  
“Got a light?”  
“I don’t smoke,” snapped the man without glancing up.  
“Shame,” Ben replied, crouching by the fire and retrieving an ember to light up, “neither do I but I was willing to share.”  
The man laughed and Ben warmed because he had been the cause of it. “Very well. You may share my fire and I will help you smoke the skinniest spliff in the world.”  
Ben grinned with nerves, stomach churning, lit up and passed the joint across the fire. “I should warn you. If you invite me to, ah, _come aboard_ I’m… new at this.”  
“Never been with a stranger?” An eyebrow raised at him, but in a way that suggested interest rather than derision.  
“I’m eighteen today and I’ve never _been with_ anything stranger than my left hand,” Ben confessed, taking a drag and holding it, flicking his hair and passing the joint back.  
“Oh?” A smile. “Well then. Happy birthday. Want to come aboard?”  
“Yes please.”

This time, Ben left half an hour later feeling rather more pleased with himself. The man had not responded when Ben asked if they could see each other again, but at least they exchanged names. It was a challenge, Ben decided. On the way back, just outside the rented family home, he closed his eyes and wished and wished and wished. After the lurch passed, he slipped upstairs for a shower and plodded down to cut his birthday cake again.

 

There were a few iterations of the same scene. Some were successful, with Ben and the redhead stepping into the cover of the narrowboat and pawing at one another in a heady mix of passion and desperation. Some were less so where Ben said or did the wrong thing. On one occasion Ben forgot about all the facts he wasn’t supposed to know, like Armitage Hux’s name and the fact the narrowboat was his home, and found himself escorted back onto the towpath and told _fuck off, stalker._

Eventually Ben thought he knew what his new friend liked best. One more, and he would probably secure an invitation for another visit. As usual, he retrieved the magically restored joint from his sock, put it in his pocket and prepared to go back to the party to cut the magically restored cake. Feeling a little light-headed and giggly, happy in his confidence that nothing could go wrong tonight, he lay down for just a moment and closed his eyes. When he opened them, sunlight streamed through the blinds, his shoes were off and there was a blanket tucked around him.

He showered, changed and clattered downstairs. The house was empty but in the kitchen was a box and a note:  
_Tucked you in like I used to. You stank of weed. Saved you some cake for breakfast or lunch. Happy birthday! H x_

Ben crumpled the note into the trash and looked at the generous chunk of yellow sponge cake with pastel fondant icing and a layer of bright red jam that leached into the cream and tinged it pink. He sealed the box again, placed it in his bag and went out. Perhaps the plain red boat would still be moored between the gaudy holiday rentals.

It was, and the redhead pottered around the fore well. Ben stopped to watch until the man noticed. “I like your boat,” Ben said with a smile. “Cool name.”  
“Thank you. _The Finalizer_ is my home.” The redhead looked Ben up and down. Ben waited to pass inspection and smirked at the hungry look he received. “Would you like a tour?” Ben’s smirk widened into a grin.  
“Yes I would. Permission to come aboard, sir?”  
“Permission granted.” Ben gripped the steadying hand offered to him and stepped onto the narrowboat.

Ben remembered to duck as he entered the berth. It was dim and cool inside, unlike the evening when it had been stuffy and hot from a day in the sun.  
“Not much to see, and all of it visible from here,” said the redhead, turning to face Ben and taking a step backwards into the gloom. Ben kept his eyes on his new friend.  
“I think there’s a lot more to see.”

That earned him a return of the hungry look and Ben put his bag down. He shrugged off his jacket and reached across to touch his host’s perfect hair. The man was on him in an instant, pulling him into a hot kiss that made the pit of his stomach fizz. Ben plastered both hands over the man’s arse and pulled their bodies flush. Somehow, they found the bed without Ben bumping into anything. Ben leaned forwards and tipped his partner onto the bed, from where he looked up in surprise.  
“You want me to fuck you.”  
It was a statement, not a question, but the redhead laughed and nodded. Ben remembered to wait for him to point at the cabinet beside the bed before retrieving lube and condoms. He smiled, remembering his embarrassment the first time this cool stranger, or some other version of him, confessed that he fantasised about having a strong, handsome man take control, hold him down and finger him until he relaxed, then pound into him until he begged for his own release. The redhead caught his smirk.  
“What are you looking so smug about?”  
“You look pretty limber. I was thinking about doing you face up, and about how much I’m going to like seeing and hearing you beg for me to let you come in my mouth when I’m done with your ass.”

* * * * *

 

Armitage stretched and shuffled to a more comfortable position with his head on Ben’s shoulder and his arm around Ben’s waist. “Well, Ben Solo. What made you stop by my boat this morning?”  
Ben shrugged and wondered if he dare kiss the top of Armitage’s head. “Dunno. I saw you and thought you were hot.”  
“So you just stopped to see if I wanted sex?”  
“I guess? I thought we could fuck then smoke weed and eat birthday cake.”  
Armitage laughed. “You’re fucking perfect. How did you know what I like?” He sat bolt upright, smile gone, face puce and finger pointing. “No really. How did you know. How did you, a complete stranger claiming never to have had sex before, know what I wanted?”

Ben sat up too. He sighed and gave up.  
“Is this the part where you call me a stalker and throw me out? I’m not, but you’ve done that before. Last night on my fourth time around.”  
Armitage shook his head as if to dislodge something and smoothed down his hair. “What. The fuck. Are you talking about.”  
“I’m a time traveller. I met you last night, at least a version of me met a version of you. You had a little fire going and you looked all… exciting. First time you asked me what I was staring at and I’d never seen anyone more beautiful than you with your face reflecting the firelight. You invited me to come aboard but it was a disaster because I really didn’t know what to do. So I went back an hour, that's all I can do, and tried again and I was better. Over and over. I wanted to make you want to see me again but every time you just said _goodbye_ or _fuck off_ so I was going to keep trying until you decided you liked me enough to want me again. But I fell asleep after sharing the same pathetic little spliff with you maybe six, seven times so this you,” Ben pointed to Armitage’s chest, “didn’t meet me last night at all. And I… I’ve… Whatever. I’ll just go.”

Ben stood with his head bowed because of the low ceiling and looked around for wherever his clothes had landed. Armitage frowned, lost in thought.  
“Ben, wait.” Ben bumped his head hard, sat on the floor and cursed. Armitage stifled a giggle. “I’m not saying I believe you but I’ve heard far worse lies so we’ll leave that little story alone for now. A time traveller who can only do an hour at a time? How shit is that! That has to be the lamest time travel story ever. What would you do if I threw you out? Go back and try again?”  
“Yes.”  
“What if I told you not to?”  
Ben looked up, surprised. “Then I wouldn’t.”  
“Huh.” Armitage looked away. “The best fuck of my life turns out not to be a total shit. That makes a nice change. I suppose you can stay for a while.”  
“Really?” Ben’s face lit up in delight. Armitage suddenly saw just how young and eager he was.  
“Yes. Well. You did promise weed and cake. We can sit out. I never light up in here.”

Ben also knew that Armitage liked quiet. They sat in the fore well without talking, passing the joint back and forth, listening to the sounds of the breeze ruffling the leaves and watching a heron stare into the murky depths then lazily flap away to a new perch. After a while Armitage smiled.  
“I wouldn’t want to lose that hour.”  
“Oh?”  
“It was a good hour. One of the best. I want to keep that hour in my life. Don’t go back.”  
Ben smiled. “Has it worked then? Can I come aboard later?”  
Armitage Hux giggled. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”


End file.
